Mi CC9 Review: Awesome Camera Phone! by mitch002 Everyone was so excited to see the unveiling of the latest smartphone by Xiaomi and this time its a joint collaboration with the beauty app company that they bought out last year which is Meitu. This company specializes in selfie post edit beautification and is quite popular across China. After the merger, finally on July 2 comes the annoucement of the fruit from the acquisition. 
Xiaomi Meitu didnt just announced one, nor two but three phones under this launch. There is the Mi CC9e, Mi CC9 and Mi CC9 Meitu Edition. We have here in our hands the CC9 variant, this is the same as the Meitu Edition for hardware wise, but for the software side, this lacks the Meitu apps and modifications. 
Tech Specs of Mi CC9:
Design The Mi CC9 sports the same outside appearance with the Mi CC9 Meitu Edition, even the hardware are the same except for the storage capacity. The only main difference is the logo at the back of the CC9 is Xiaomi and not Meitu. The phone itself is very nice to hold on, it sports the same icy effect on the back of the phone like that from the Glacier Blue of the Mi 9T and the waterdrop notch was carried over from the Mi 9 flagship. The only upgrade I saw on this phone is the availablity of the SD card expansion slot over the Mi 9 and Mi 9T which is sometimes quite important for heavy users. They have only 3 color for the CC9 which is the pearl white, blue and gray. The glass protection is mentioned to be Corning Gorilla Glass 5, same as the Mi 9T while there is no mentioning about the protection of the glass back case (it is assumed to be CG5 based on speculations) Unboxing 
Special Edition Case (sold separately) 
Display and Audio We were expecting a lot from the display side as we know that its sporting a Samsung AMOLED, tho this is already a norm for Mi Series since the Mi 8. The Full HD display did blew me away with its awesome rendering of photos and videos, and probably one thing that is not good with AMOLED is the burn in problems like those on the Samsung Galaxy Flagship Series that we have heard about. After holding the Mi 9T with the popup camera and notchless display, we felt that we did took a step backward as we went back to the teardrop notch display similar to the Mi 9 flagship. We watched several movies and I can say its pretty crisp and detailed especially playing 4K quality movies. The sound was excellent, especially the louspeaker it was really really loud! Even it is not stereo sounds, but playing games are pretty solid, the output of the sounds are quite loud but sometime a little cracked compared the Mi 9T. The loudspeaker is definitely louder than the Mi 9 but it is at par with the Mi 9T which has the same max volume for the loud speaker. Bluetooth connectivity of headset is also no problem on this unit upon transfering files from Mi 9T, Mi Drop was also seamless. Playing games like PUBG was not a problem tho we cannot access the highest definition, just dont forget to access the Mi Game Turbo Mode v2.0 inside the security app. Audio Format supported by the Mi CC9 Supports PCM, AAC/AAC+/eAAC+, MP3, AMR-NB and WB, FLAC, WAV and other audio formats 3.5mm headphone jack | Hi-Res Audio (high resolution audio) Video Format Supported by the Mi CC9
Video formats such as H.265/HEVC (Main profile), H.264 (Baseline/Main/High profile), MPEG4 (Simple profile/ASP), and supports high dynamic range display when playing HDR10 video content. Snapdragon 710 Xiaomi did took a little step back after launching the Redmi K20 with the SD 730, this time they released the CC9 sporting only the SD 710. But take note that the target market is mostly female and selfie savy persons, not the gamer market, tho the SD 710 can perform well for games. The 710 is definitely a performer for both multitasking as well as battery optimization. This is powered together with the Adreno 616, and of course a generous serving of 6GB of RAM, it will give you a pretty above average performance in both multitaksing and gaming category, running PUBG and NBA2k19 was not really a problem its just that we cannot set it to the maximum graphic setting. the best midrange experience up to date. AnTuTu benchmark gave it a 173872 point out of the box which is the expected score for this processor. This score is at par with the CC9 Meitu Edition. 
All Three Colors in the House 
Camera The Mi CC9 probably has the Best Selfie Camera among all the Xiaomi phones that I ever held (and of course the CC9 Meitu), the front shooter is not only just another 32MP camera, but it has probably one of the most beautification centric camera I have ever seen. Coupled with the Sony IMX 586 48MP camera at the back, this camera should capture awesome photos wherever you go. 
Sample Photos 
Forgive me as I take more selfies than usual for this phone, its just really fun. 
Mi Moji 
Mi CC9 Meitu Edition Battery and Benchmark: The Mi CC9 supports the Qualcomm Quick charge 4.0 and up to 18W of speed. We charged the Mi CC9 and it took in 7V 2.7 Amperes based on our testing using the supplied charger and cable. We charged the phone from 19% to 100% in just 1 hour and 29 minutes and it was quite good for a 4030 mAh capacity phone. We recorded a 14.5 hour SOT endurance test under normal usage as the PC Mark Battery Stress Test failed 3 times on this unit and we are not sure why. If these statistics are true on a normal daily use, then it's really a good sign for the said smartphone, and based on my daily usage for several days, the battery almost last me a day without hitting the charging dock. 
Verdict The Mi CC9 for me is probably one of the most uncanny selfie phone I have ever seen, every shot I took from the front cam seems very lively and with a little touch of beautification, it just looks so great. Even that its just a SD 710, there is not really a big problem as it was able to run most of the games that I threw at it, and it did render with ease tho it cant max out on the best setting of the game. If you are in the market looking for the best budget selfie phone, have no doubt that this is definitely the phone just for you! |
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